Diablo 3 Difficulty Needs to be Increased?

Posted By: December 24, 2012

A couple of recent forum posts ask for an increase to Diablo 3 difficulty, and while both got Blued, the CMs didn’t add anything to the conversation. It’s a conversation worth having though, so here they are:

Can’t Invulnerable Monsters return in MP5?

I keep reading about this feature, unfortunately, I came to the game after it was removed. It sounds really interesting and cool, and I wish that, once I got better gear good enough for higher MPs , I could be able to experience it 🙁

Vaeflare: We don’t have any current plans for the Invulnerable affix to rear its head and return. We felt it was a frustrating affix for many players, and that it was out of line with the other affixes, which is why we removed it. In a similar way, we feel that the Reflects Damage affix isn’t quite where we want it to be, which is why we’re looking intomaking some adjustments to the mechanics of how it works, as well as fixing a related bug.

A common result of Invulnerable Minion encounters.

The poster means Invulnerable Minions, and you should check out the wiki article which has a ton of details, screenshots, videos, Blue quotes about the issue, and more. As a reminder, this modifier was found only in Hell and Inferno before it was removed in v1.04, and it granted all of the minions of a boss (yellow name) permanent Shielding. They could not be hit or damaged or killed, but would all die the instant their boss died. The modifier forced players to kite around like mad, trying to hit the boss past his wall of Secret Service meatshields, and made tanking difficult since shielded monsters don’t yield leech or life on hit or allow crits to create procs, etc.

If it returned, Invulnerable Minions would be interesting and probably not so bad now. Players are better, characters are much stronger, and Inferno is easier than back in v1.03. Everyone has a variety of AoE attacks to hit the boss and minions at once, players would lead the minions into crowds of regular monsters to keep their procs and life leech going, etc.

And that’s just the problem with the game, according to some:

We so out gear this grindy game its not funny. You have 500K gold barbs beating MP10. I can do it for 20m gold as a wiz. Just stack defense beat game, beat any reflect, play lazy. Sad the whiners don’t realize that and game is about to get even easier with RD nerf. Anyway – I miss 1.0.2 with the whole nine yards. Real damage. Enrage. Shielding. Higher reflect. You just couldnt stack defense – enrage would get u. You just couldnt stack DPS. reflect and hits would get u. U needed balance to conquer gates of inferno.

Petition bring it back! But you get 1000% MF for being there.

Grimiku: Discussing this subject matter is fine, but I am locking this thread since we try to avoid petitions on the forums. You’re welcome to recreate the thread so long as it’s not in a petition format.

Not much from the Blue there, but I skimmed over the B.net thread to see the response, and it was mostly full of agreement. One is never sure if the B.net forums are 100% trolls or just 90%, but how do you guys feel about the difficulty? I hear a lot of complaints about D3 (and many compliments as well) but “it’s too easy” isn’t often chief amongst the gripes. It can certainly become very easy if you’re well-geared for farming runs on MP0 or MP1, but that’s kind of the point; those levels are there to let players blast through on item runs. The higher MP levels are there for a bigger challenge, and most people I’ve talked to feel that they serve that purpose pretty well.

I certainly haven’t heard anyone pining for a return to the early days of D3, before Paragon levels and Monster Power, when legendaries neither existed nor functioned, when Inferno was “doubled” and a very harsh gear check, when monsters enraged in long battles and healed completely every time you died and left the area, when multiplayer games were harder than solo since monsters got huge health boosts, etc.

That said, I’ll ask all the same… who thinks D3 is too easy now? Anyone who hasn’t played 1000+ hours, or used a Romney-sized bankroll to outfit themselves via the Auction House? And would a return of Invulnerable Minions help things?

Comments

I played it since day 1 and spent most of may playing act 3 … where I’d pick 1 elite (after clearing jars) and kill him with hope to find good weapon to resell. It wasn’t fun nor it was grinding… it was pure frustration. The, finally friend and I ventures of act2, where those fast attackers owned you…

Most moved directly to act3, where with my 70dps wiz I kept getting owned… Then they nerfed ias and my 70k dps became 45k and rebuilding begun.

Those who want harder difficulty, either forgot how hard it was or think their 300k dps cookie cutters will work…

I think mp8 or so, is a how it was in 1.01 or 1.02… when I do key runs, I go to assassins at mp8 and it can really be tough if you get horde, fast, molten, reflective elite.

I think 1-10 is just fine.. I play from mp2 solo runs to mp6-8 keys to mp10 runs when my monk friend makes me join.

..or maybe those who want it harder are just better players. You were struggling with 70k dps. Many people were farming act 3 comfortably at 40k. It’d have been extremely trivial at 300k.

If anything, current MP is tedious/frustrating/whatever because it makes fights longer but not really harder. Someone calculated earlier that the monster hp used to be on ~MP2 level but their damage on ~MP10+ level. So you can’t really use the MP system to tune the game to be as hard as before without making anything take forever to kill.

I farmed A3 with 42k as a DH back then and I did it on a regular basis so not BS. It could be frustrating at times but it was certainly do-able. I farmed it better than other DH i played with that had nearly double the damage. They all got 1 shot Where as I only got destroyed by a few specific packs, invulnerable often being the number 1 destroyer. I also farmed ponies with significantly lower dps than I should have had at the beginning.

Wizards and demon hunters were farming a3 *and* a4 with 30k+ dps. There are videos on Youtube pre 103 too with gear and stats in them for proof. If javazon couldnt farm a3 with 70k dps as wizard, he was using the wrong build or was an exceptionally bad player with zero reflexes. 70k dps for wizard back then was godly, could trash any act in archon form ez.

As for the actual difficulty, the only thing that made the game difficult for people without good gear was reheal. Not enrage, not the damage, not reflect, no invulnerable … but reheal. Getting an elite pack down to 2/3 and the dying, going back and finding them back to full health. Stupidest mechanic ever!

Like I said already, you were using the wrong build or you gave up too easily because every now and then something one shot you. Wizards and dh with 30k dps could complete inferno and farm a3/4, in fact is was a benchmark minimum dps for both back then. Also search for a3/4 farming videos pre June 19th on YT and you will see what I am talking about. Just dont be so ready to call someone a liar before you know what you are talking about, it makes you look dumb.

“Better players?” Define “Better players”…people who were 1) lucky enough to get items to drop for them while farming? 2) People who picked DH’s as their main when the game released who got a huge upper hand on the market and were able to sell the things they farmed for and got due to their OP class lucky pick and are now rich and can BUY their way to the top? 3) People who have alot of real life finances and can drop real life money on BUYING the best set for their classes so they can farm MP10 and then come to this forum and whine about how “easy” the game is for them and should be harder? I mean you may think you are just “good” at the game because you looked up the best build for your class on a website and bought the appropriate gear, but some of us actually farm and figure things out on their own and have a small fortune based off of the hard work, and not the 1% mentality like alot of people like you have.

People who don’t whine and give up easily like you. I find mp10 easy too, especially compared to release inferno which its supposed to emulate, and I dont have 1bln in gear or ever spend real cash either, so do not generalise. It makes you look silly.

With the proviso that I have just started and I am plying self-found, I don’t find it too easy. In fact I am getting a little fed up of the little scream my Barbarian makes every time she dies.

At the stage I am at I find the difficulty just right, it is possible to play the game and make (slow) progress with the stuff I have and there is always the nice new bit of equipment that makes and improvement to look forward to. I came to Diablo 2 later than most and by that time Hell difficulty was way too difficult so I am looking forward to actually finishing this game 🙂

Yeah, the Auction House skews everything. If there was a single player D3, or some kind of Ironborn mode as I’ve plugged a few times, people would be amazed by Inferno completion, much less farming, much less MP5+ key runs, etc.

In a lot of ways success at D3 is indistinguishable and inseparable from success at the Auction House, and thanks to the RMAH anyone can pay to win that game.

It skews everything… in fact, I can’t bring myself to play the game anymore.

I’ve played the game a couple hundred hours, and even though I’ve played it that much, I don’t have much gold (I’ve lucked up on zero legendaries — they’re all trash; same with rares), and my items kind of suck. Every minute I play I think, “Damn… Just like $3 on the RMAH will make MY ENTIRE PLAY TIME worthless, and in fact I’d probably be able to buy better gear.”

And then I realize, if I give Blizzard money, they’ll win. They’ll be encouraged to make yet another terrible game economy where your character’s power is determined by either how much money you put in or how lucky you are playing “against the house”.

It’s sad really. Diablo 3, I just want to have fun with you. Why do you have to make things so complicated?

I wish people would stop saying the game is difficult and needs to be made harder. Diablo 3 is not difficult. It never was. The big thing is the game needs to be made “difficult” and not “cheap” like it currently stands.

One-hit-kills are not difficult; they are cheap. Gear-checks are not difficult; they are cheap. Arbitrary HP/Damage increases are not difficult; they are cheap. There is nothing “difficult” about Diablo 3. This is the problem. They need to add “challenge” to the game, but with the current engine, I don’t think it is possible (nevermind Blizzard’s mindset).

I played since day one and I think the difficulty is about right as it is now. If you want to have hardcore difficulty, you can always turn MP10 and go have fun in Act II with champion wasps. And if you want fun, you can turn on MP0-4 and faceroll everything, like good old days of D2.

Now its really a walk in the park, the difficulty needs a quick ramp back. First days when they revealed the whole Inferno, Jay said that they made it hard and doubled it then…coz they knew that there are great players who would overcome it eventually. Well they just made their own mess by degrading difficulty level, with or without MP’s that is.

The only way I would want the game to become harder is by Blizzard giving mobs more abilities and special attacks (e.g. power attacks or debuffs) and perhaps improving their AI too, i.e. the kind of improvements I originally expected would come with Inferno.

That said, I think the game has become both much easier and much more fun since the early days and much prefer that to the alternative.

Agreed. Those hammer dudes from halls of agony who swung so hard that their hammers got stuck… such a nightmare for my monk; or the charging bulls. Let MP5+ add mobs from all acts in the one you are playing. The succubi debuff is good but we need lots more like it. Also, spellcasters – nobody throws fireballs any more.

It’s not that the game is too easy, it’s the fact that the easiest way to farm is also the best way to farm. That’s a really crappy and boring combination. I see no real reason to upgrade my characters much more atm, but I would if there was some incentive to play on higher MP. Hellfire farming isn’t enough for that.

Yeah, HC is where it’s at. By definition it’s unforgiving. Last time I played (which was a couple of months ago, actually) I was going through Inf Act 2 a couple of times, but I’m not hardcore enough to play on anything above MP0 yet… It’s tough

Any talking is worth, since devs can “have” some ideas based on feedback but, imo, it’s not necessary right now.

It’s hard to find a character that can faceroll MP10 (definition of facerolling = D2’s Blizzard sorc doing AT at /p7, wearing death’s fathom).

You can find people able to do uber runs at MP10 and carry 3 other people along. However, it takes some time.

And, btw, if you ain’t doing some crazy personal challenges, I never considered a final version of a diablo game Hard. What I like on this franchise is the ability to quickly melt stuff and picking up loot.

Sure, you can get a very decent char with 500k. You just remove the ias of the boots and refrain from using Inna’s Pants/Lacunis – and then you die from boredom 🙂

If someday lots of non-barbs can consistently make alkaizer runs with 300 MF on MP 10 in around 20 minutes, then it would be time to change. If it’s not the case, I’m sure there are room for improvement.

Ok, I’m exagerating. Depending on how they solve the “RD problem” (aka people wanting to ignore AR and stack enormous amounts of DPS without insta-dying), maybe the game will start to feel to easy.

I’m really starting to move from “tinfoil-hatism” to “fanboism”. I mean, if you check the official forums you’ll find people wanting a game with different itemization, different builds, different history, different challenge level and, sometimes, even different name (“this game shouldn’t be called diablo”). Imo, it isn’t that hard to tell people want a different game.

Imo, they should make every class as useful as 2x tornado barbs, speed-wise (even barbarian should have his tornadoes taken away, compensating the 90% dmg loss with major improvements on WW itself, that should be a offensive skill instead a mov. skill). Then, I would like to see legendaries with more static affixes. 90-250 is ok, +3 random props. isn’t. The item lottery is RNG (ok affix value) inside of RNG (desired affix) inside of RNG (item drop).

After fixing classes and items, then they should double check if the game is too easy.

The game is too easy in some ways.
While MP10 offers plenty of “difficulty” it is not necessarily the right type of difficulty, but rather it might become the challenges of staying awake and getting gear with high enough DPS.

I would like to move more toward tactical difficulty, where your movement, awareness of surroundings and good use of your skills at the right times matters more once again.

There should not be one correct answer to every challenge like with the Whirlwind-barb and others. It is much more fun when you have to adjust to different types of enemies on the fly.

It doesn’t necessarily have to mean “more difficult” in a broad sense, just more difficult in a different sense.

Also, somewhat related, dying should matter a lot more. That would in itself make a step toward more interesting difficulty and make defensive stats more useful again in SC, so the game isnt just about kill and movement speed – where a death once in a while in SC is acceptable as long as you move fast enough when you don’t die.
Death should be meaningful enough to make people wat to avoid it at all cost. Not unlike HC, just without the risk of losing your characters for good of course.

I must have said this a million times with my friend, hit-leniency is the worst thing to happen to diablo, that and the fucking shit AI, they really need to make the game challenging in a tactical and thoughtful way, not just “We increased X percentage, its harder.”

I’d say that when they game seemed harder, that was mostly due to monsters being vastly overtuned (I’m looking at you, lacuni huntresses). They were probably all right when evaluated isolated, by their own separate factors (kind of like in a test environment) but the developers obviously forgot to test and balance them for the other 99% of the game’s reality, when there are many, many other factors adding up to work against the player.

That said, I’d subscribe to the view that the game could always use some additional challenge – that meaning clever enemy buff/debuff mechanics, abilities and behaviors though, not simply raising monster damage.

Remember when they (mis)communicated that monsters would gain additional abilities over the course of different difficulty modes? I was so disappointed when I discovered they meant several elite/champion affixes unlocking with higher monster levels instead of the basic monster types learning new and more complex attack patterns for nightmare/hell/inferno modes.

On-Topic: The problem is still with the chosen systems concerning damage output/mitigation. They lead to a curve with just a small range feeling ideally challenged and sharp drops to beeing too easy or too hard. Just a tiny +100 resistances or 5k damage missing to the ideal, playing becomes a burden. If you got the same amount above the ideal, then it becomes easy enough to play relaxed, even in tough situations. (If one is above the ideal, the other below, you can compensate a bit by changing your playingstyle accordingly.) Another +100/+5k and faster run is starting to become your limit. (Or -100/-5k and, well, you’re stuck.)

This is the little thingy bugging D3-gameplay from the beginning. But what you could do with 60k damage and 800 all res at release, you now are able to run down with 25k and 350 all res. (Assuming MP0.) But this issue at the core of the “too hard/too easy”-discussion hasn’t been resolved at all and may never be.

I think the difficulty is just fine. I wonder if what people really mean is they want more variety over the course of finishing the game?
If that is the case, then I would really like to see greater variety in how I choose the play the game.

-I would like better, and more complex, crafting abilities.
-I would like the shopkeepers to have a better chance to sell really good items every once in a while.
-I would like to have a much bigger variety of things to socket into items.
-Not to mention more sockets in items.
-I would like to do away with movement cap speed. I understand I’m giving up certain benefits for others and would like to have as much speed on my character as I choose. I want to make that choice.
-I would like to also do away with the MF cap. I still like magic find as it currently is, but I want to make the choice in how much I decide to ‘cap’ myself.
-I would like the ability to buff certain abilities of my choice (in a non-redeemable way), rather than be able to swap willy-nilly through all my abilities. This, in my opinion, encourages more character builds, rather than a ‘one-fits-all’ kind of build.
-I would like to see some form of Nephalem Valor in the lower difficulties. It’s still a little frustrating to feel that the game doesn’t really begin until level 60. Is there a way to enjoy all the lower levels as well? I recently played a witch doctor through Normal and Nightmare on MP10 with high experience bonus gain just so I could get to level 60 -just so I could equip him with the legendary items I’m only finding with my other post-level 60 characters.

TLDR* I would rather have greater variety in how I choose to get from ‘A’ to ‘Z’, and be able to enjoy the game at whatever level my character happens to be at.

I quit around 1.0.3-4, played a bit in 1.0.5 and might play a bit again. I won’t miss invulnerables.
I played wit, and struggled in a3 after they added stupid timers to bosses. 30ish k dps, I was not rich enough, I hated the long mf sessions because od nv.

It’s too easy to dominate MP0/MP1, and unfortunately that’s also the best way to gain items and exp. In my non-humble opinion, the most efficient possible way to farm should require godly equipment with plenty of offensive AND defensive affixes. Players with enough damage, all resist, life steal, to farm MP10 should be rewarded with the best drops and paragon exp. But enemies on MP10 need to hit hard enough so that 50k health isn’t a viable option for attempting this. Each MP level should be a gear check with appropriate rewards.

Love all these people that haven’t even tried hardcore mode complaining that the game isn’t hard enough. Of course the game is going to get boring when death has absolutely no meaning. What a bunch of limp wristed noobs. LOL

The thing is, it isnt enough that HC can be challenging. SC should offer some of that too. HC isn’t a substitute for having interesting challenge in SC.

I have played through inferno in both HC and SC, and HC was way more fun! No doubt about it.
But I have a very hard time accepting that I can lose my characters and all the time I have spent on gearing them up, in a single disconnect.

There is no reason you couldn’t have at least some of the same sense of danger and fear of deaths in SC as you get in HC, even if it could of course never be the same.

I get what you are saying. I too cruinge when I think of losing my HC characters to disconnects. It’s something that would be very easily addressed by Blizzard yet they chose not to. Pause the characters game on disconnect if they don’t return in 1 hour resume the game and give them the ten seconds rule before exiting. On the other hand I hear very VERY few people asking for death to be more punishing in SC. Most of the complaints came from people “losing too much gold in repair bills”. They just couldn’t handle not dying repeatedly to easy content. Shit is jokes! That’s why I really have no respect at all for people playing SC who are disgruntled with their experience.

The game was mostly hard back then because our items were complete trash. Current players would destroy D3 at launch. Having over 100K unbuffed dps is very common now, back then anything over 50K was godly. Items that sold for millions back then are vendor trash. Heck, items that sold for millions in July and August are vendor trash now.

WW barbs would laugh at invuln, just phase through the minions and tornado the boss down. Then again, playing a WW barb kinda warps the idea of difficulty in this game since you can avoid all CC and you can’t be knock backed even outside of wrath form as long as you’re spinning. I haven’t played another class in a long time, like a wiz or dh that might actually have to worry about dodging projectiles or avoiding CC or being annoyed by waller or frozen or reflect.

NO! Stop wasting dev’s time and let them finish PVP. PVP was mentioned prior to the game selling. Now that it has been out, get PVP out please. If you want invulnerable monsters, why stop at MP5 when there’s MP10 or play hardcore.

I don’t miss invulnerable, and I think Reflect Damage CAN BE (but not always) way too difficult. My top complaint about the game after one-shot kills from off the screen, and lag-death. But I do think they need to make the game harder. And not just with the Monster Power. Monster power means higher damage and more hit points, but is otherwise the same. The CHALLENGE needs to increase. I’m a medium player. Never made it past Act I Hell in either previous Diablo game, playing each for 10 years. I’ve already beaten Inferno with 2 different classes. I shouldn’t be doing that. I should be stuck on Act I Hell. No, at this point, i should be stuck in Act 3 Nightmare. Too Easy, Blizzard. (Omitted: The other 9 things that need to be fixed about this game.) (Correction,8 things Omitted. Unchangeable skill points and skill trees should be reinstated. If I screw up a build, I should have to start again from scratch. That will help with the difficulty.)

They also need to fix hit-leniency, and that bullshit where if enough enemy’s are hitting you while you run, it like sucks you backwards because the servers trying to read that you’ve gotten hit like 40 times in a second.

Been playing for a bit..got a level 60 char..thinking of working a second up to 60 as well..just because it gets boring farming with that one. With that said.

No, the game isn’t difficult..or not truely difficult. As another said…cheap one hit kills..or the enemy doing certain tricks that only work if you don’t know about the enemy beforehand isn’t difficulty..its cheapness. Right now I only consider the difficulty to be a ‘gear check’ certain things you can only beat if your ‘gear is this high’ and once it is..you just steamroll it. Beforehand it’d just kill you no questions asked.

And leveling up? Faceroll faceroll faceroll. It’s extreemly boring to level up new characters..no real excitement, game is easy as pie.

Now does that mean I think we need to go to the inferno difficulty I’ve only heard about? Well based on what I heard of it…no. it was just the problem i spoke of, but worse. Not truely hard..you just needed real good gear to actually do anything in inferno mode. But once you got the gear it was easy again and got going.

The game has no true challenge…sadly I don’t think just making monsters live longer..or hit harder will do too much to help with true difficulty of the game.

I’ve played Diablo 3 at release. I know how hard it was then and how hard it was now. I think the more important question is. People still play Diablo 3? You could make it poll style like you always do.

Do you still play diablo 3 and why?
a) yes, because there is a small spark of hope that they will patch it into greatness that cannot be crushed.
b) Yes, but only because I cant find another arpg to satisfy me, like heroin.
c) Yes, I love Diablo 3!
d) No, but I continue to visit the forums because of reason A
e) No, but i continue to keep tabs because it’s like watching a train wreck.

So whadda ya say inc gamers team? this is the poll id most like to know. Though admittedly it will have a bias towards those who still play I know I would vote D. I cant help but hope. But can’t bear to play.